April Fool´s Day again
by Kari-chan-06
Summary: It´s the end of March again and Tony starts to plan a new attack on his boss for April Fool´s day. As I have not watched Twilight, I will assume that this is happening pretwilightish
1. Tony has a plan

April Fool´s Day again

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything.

Summary: It´s the end of March again and Tony starts to plan a new attack on his boss for April Fool´s day. (As I have not watched Twilight, I will assume that this is happening pre-twilightish) Taking place after the events in "April Fool´s Day".

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Chapter 1- Tony has a plan

As the month of March was slowly drawing to an end, Tony came up with yet another plan to make April 1st an unforgettable day for everyone at NCIS. The year before his plan had gotten all of them almost killed by Gibbs, who had been the victim of the prank. Thinking back, the idea of letting the boat vanish from Gibbs´ basement and returning it after a day had been very unique. Even Gibbs himself had said so, but Tony knew that he had to come up with something different than that this year. Plus, he didn´t want anyone getting hurt this time. Abby had suffered a broken wrist and Kate a torn muscle last year, not to mention the black eye Tony had gotten himself. This year it would be different.

"Hey, Kate!" He called over at his colleague when Gibbs was gone for coffee in the afternoon. She looked up and gave him a questioning look. "How about some fun next Monday?" He asked and saw a puzzled expression on her face.

Kate checked her timeplanner and felt her jaw drop. "No way! You´re not seriously thinking about pulling another prank this year, are you?" She asked and remembered the events just one year ago. Even in the three years she had been with the NCIS and the time at Secret Service before that, she had never feared more for her life than in this one night when Gibbs had been after their heads.

Dinozzo leaned back in his chair and grinned. "What do you think? Hey, come on, he´s beenworse than ever since he failed that eye exam last month. He was seriously pissed off when I handed my report in late -5 minutes late that is." He said and looked at her again.

"Yeah, and he yelled at me last week that I put salt in his coffee. Seriously, I just had one or two grains of salt on my fingers when I put the sugar in." McGee piped up from his desk, having overheard their conversation. "Count me in, Tony."

"See? Even probie knows when the time is right." Kate just rolled her eyes at her colleague and was about to say when a voice boomed through the bullpen.

"You better know the right time to keep your mouth shut, Dinozzo. Where´s that list of the paychecks I asked for half an hour ago?" Gibbs snapped and sat down at his desk again, a large cup of coffee in his hand.

"Come on, boss. There are more than 100of thoseon file -I´m halfway through. Give me another hour for that." Tony complained as he continued to fill the blanks on his screen.

"You have 20 minutes, Dinozzo. Kate, get that smile out of your face. I´m still waiting for the information on the package we found next to the body. And McGee, don´t you dare to go down to the lab again. Should I catch you playing computer games with Abby again, I will introduce you to the games we played in the marine corps." With that, he picked up his coffee and walked to the elevator. "I´m down in autopsy. Stay clear of my desk."

When the doors closed, Kate looked at Tony. "All right, what´s the plan?" She asked and Tony saw her a fire burning in her eyes. If there was one thing that could set her off, it was grumpy Gibbs telling her off for nothing. "Only because he´s got a rock instead of a heart doesn´t give him the right to control our emotions." She explained to McGee, who was looking a bit surprised.

"Not here, don´t know if he bugged the bullpen after what happened last year." Dinozzo said and grinned. "You got mail, Kate. And you too, Probie." He grinned and dug into the files again.

Kate opened the new message and grinned. "Tonight after work, my place, it´s pizza and beer -if you want something else, bring it along." The text read and she deleted it immediately. It was going to be an eventful evening, at least if there were the same people in it as last year.


	2. Finding Allies

April Fool´s Day again

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything.

Summary: It´s the end of March again and Tony starts to plan a new attack on his boss for April Fool´s day. (As I have not watched Twilight, I will assume that this is happening pre-twilightish)

Authors Note: Forgive me for putting both Morrow AND Shepard in, but I really needed two superiors here for the fun of it. I guess that makes the story AU then. Don´t beat me for that, please!

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2- Finding Allies

After work, everyone took off towards the parking level, like they did every day and drove out onto the main road.Once they were out of sight from the building, they went straight for Dinozzo´s apartment. Kate was last to arrive andgrinned when she saw the assembled cars in the street. She had taken a detour to get some ice cream for all of them on special request from Abby. When the door opened and she saw a whole lot of people squeezing into Tony´s livingroom. "Hey, Kate!" Abbysquealed and took the ice cream from her with a smile.

"Wow...you seem to have quite something planned here." Kate said as she looked around. Abby, McGee and Palmer sat on the couch. Ducky had taken one of the armchairs, the second one was occupied by a woman Kate would have never expected here. "Director Shepard." She said and her eyes widened.

"It´s just Mrs. Shepard -or Jenny, we´re not at the office here." Shepard replied and helped herself to a piece of tuna pizza. "tom Morrowwas going to come as well, but it´s his granddaughter´s birthday. I´ll brief him tomorrow over lunch though." She said and had a rather evil grin on her face. Kate shuddered a bit when she remembered that Gibbs and Shepard used to be...oh well, she didn´t really want to think about it and dropped that thought as Tony came in from the kitchen.

Carrying two six-packs of beer, Dinozzo walked to the table and dropped the beverages there right onto a half eaten veggie pizza, buying himself a glance from Abby, who pulled the cans off and set them somewhere else. "Help yourselves. There´s another meat lovers in the kitchen, in case you still wants some. I got some more beer in the fridge as well." He said and threw a can of beer over to Kate, who caught it with her free hand. "Right then, I guess you know what we´re here for, so before I tell you what I got planned, any ideas from you guys?" Everyone looked at him and shook heads. "Right then...after what happened last year, Gibbs will be more than just a watchdog over his boat and his house, so there´s no point to try something around there. I doubt that he´ll expect something at work though, that´s why I have invited Mrs. Shepard to join us, as well as Morrow. I was going to ask Fornell for help, too, but I doubt that he would know what fun is..."

"No way, Tony. Anyone but Fornell!" Kate called at him and remembered when the FBI guy had last shown up at the bullpen, making their day lots worse than it had been anyway.

Tony just went on about his plan and everyone just stared at him. Ducky found his speech first. "Anthony, let me see if I have understood correctly. You want me to put something into Jethro´s coffee that sedates him, right?"

"Right on, Duck. We´re going to move stuff around and get the faked files up on the database. As we´re going to pull that on Monday, we got Sunday to prepare the office for it. We need to update the database with faked files to make sure he doesn´t catch us in case he checks there. We need to re-do the desk signs as well." He said and looked at Abby and McGee.

"I´m on the database -it´s not easy to get into it, but I got some additional passwords from Mrs. Shepard this morning, so it shouldn´t be a problem to pull a copy of everyone´s file and put those fake ones up for a day." Abby said and smiled widely. "Hey, they won´t catch me. Even the guys from the CIA...oh, never mind."

"I´ll get the desk signs from Greg on Saturday. He´ll be doing them the same way our actual ones are, so we get to keep them as souvenirs afterwards." That was Tim, who seemed to enjoy this quite some bit.

"Very well now, but what are you going to do if you have to go out to a site?" Ducky said and everyone looked at Tony for an answer.

"Well, keep the act up. That´s why I´ll be in the place of Senior Agent and Kate as my second in command. Oh, McGee, you okay being our new NCIS director for that day? Mrs. Shepard will take over Abby´s lab -we´ve worked out a wonderful flower decoration for that."Tony continued and rubbed his hands.

Kate felt her eyes widening. "Hang on...flower decoration? McGee as director? I think I missed the first part of that. Could you please go overit again? I´m not sure I got all of that at once." She said and took a large sip from her beer. This seemed to be thoroughly planned, even more than last year and she tried to get all the details he had been rattling down.

"McGee will be our NCIS director. I will be Senior Agent, you, Kate, second in command, means that you will take my spot on the team. Mrs. Shepard takes Abby´s role as lab tech while Abby is going to be head of the morgue. Palmer is on the team as well, taking Kate´s spot there. Director Morrow will be in the morgue instead of Palmer. Ducky will be taking Morrow´s job up in the organization office." Dinozzo explained and Kate tried to follow him.

"That would leave Gibbs for...no way, you´re kidding, right? That would leave Gibbs...No way, are you serious?" She exclaimed and everyone broke into laughter. "Oh my word...he´ll kill us, Tony."

"If he finds out. See, we´re going to spike his coffee again in the afternoon, maybe after getting back from a site or whatever happens that day. We return everything to the original state and tell him he fell asleep. No big deal. McGee will catch it all on video for us, we´ll put some additional webcams up and hide some microphones. Really no bit deal at all." He explained and got a sceptical look from Abby.

She pulled her sleeve back and two fine white lines on her wrist were visible. "I just hope it´s a smaller deal than last year. I don´t need another set of pins in my body." She said, but still smiled. They continued to go over the plan again until they went back home around 11 pm. They had three more days to get everything ready and Kate somehow got the feeling that they might beeither in for a lot of fun or someserious trouble.


	3. Let the Games begin

April Fool´s Day again

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything.

Summary: It´s the end of March again and Tony starts to plan a new attack on his boss for April Fool´s day. (As I have not watched Twilight, I will assume that this is happening pre-twilightish)

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2- Let the Games begin

On Monday morning, Gibbs studied them closely as he walked in. "Before you think of going near my house today, Dinozzo: I got a guard standing in front ofit with your picture and the order to shoot you immediately." He informed Tony, who merely smiled.

"Well, good morning to you too, boss. And no, I have no intention of going near your house, your boat or any other of your belongings for the time being." He replied and continued to work on his report. They had a lot of paperwork to finish, so it seemed like a normal day in the office.

"Good morning, Jethro." Sounded a voice from the elevator a while later. Kate checked her watch. It was 9 am already-the time they had set to get started. Ducky came walking in with a tray of coffee on top. All knew that Gibbs only drank one specific type of coffee, so everyone else had ordered latte or something that he would never touch. "I thought, I should bring you some coffee -it seems to be a long day with all that paperwork you have there." The doctor said, sounding cheerfully as usual.

Kate took her soy latte and watched closely as Ducky approached Gibbs. "Good thinking, Duck. I can really use some of Starbuck´s homeblend this morning. It is homeblend, isn´t it?" He asked skeptically before taking the largest cup off the tray.

"And extra strong. Well, of course. What kind of a friend would I be not knowing your preferences in coffee?" Ducky said and handed the last latte to McGee. "I have an autopsy waiting, so please excuse me now." He said and vanished into the elevator. He had told them that the sedative in the coffee wouldneed about 10 minutes to take effect. It was used for small surgical routines on people who were afraid of needles.

After about 8 minutes, Kate noticed that Gibbs had a hard time to keep his eyes open. She had a hard time hiding her grin and dropped her pen a couple of times to get out of his sightfor a moment.Not quite three minuteslater, his head rolled back and he was sound asleep. Tony got up slowly. "Hey, Gibbs, I´ll go take your boat for a ride then." He said, but there was no reaction. Before getting too close, he decided on a last test."Wow...who is that on the picture in your drawer, boss? Out cold. We got about 15 minutes now."

Within seconds, the bullpen started to buzz with people. Eventhough not everyone was in on the exact plan, Jenny Shepard had made sure that nobody would spoil the fun.Everyone grabbedsome stuff and moved to another desk. They exchanged name signsand cell phone cards among other things. Kate called up Abby to make sure she was putting the faked files up into the database. After a mere 10 minutes, the office was rearranged and all were ready. "Okay, name signs changed...everyone in the right place...Did you get that other jacket for Gibbs? The one with the probie thing on the back? Oh, and did you swap his ID and badge?" Kate asked and Jimmy Palmer nodded. He had exchanged his lab coat for a normal suit and an NCIS basecap. He seemed a bit uncomfortable, but they had briefed him well enough to get him into a certain routine there.

They started to work on their case again when they noticed that Gibbs was slowly coming around again. Kate really had to pull herself together and she could see that Palmer was just as nervous. "Don´t worry, Jimmy. We´ll be fine." She told him only seconds before Gibbs shot up in his seat. They had replaced his coffee with anew cupto make sure he absolutely didn´t notice.

"Boss, I got that call tracked down." Palmer said and walked over to the large desk, where Tony was sitting. "It´s been a bit scrambled, but I went over it with Jenny and got it cleared. She said we can run another scan if we need to." Kate nodded at him and looked over at Gibbs, who was rubbing his eyes now.

"Hey, Gibbs. Where´s thatphone list? I´ve been waiting for 20 minutes. Maybe you should be sleeping here if that would help you getting your work done." Tony called at him right this moment and she had to hide her smile. "Kate? What do you have on that license plate?"

"I´m still running a search on the database. Another 20 minutes." She replied. They had planned the first hour of this act timidly to make it look real enough. It was a nice break from their usual routine and the thought of having all of it on video afterwards made it worth the effort.

"5 minutes and I have it on my desk. Where´s Abbs? Is she really taking that long on the body?" Tony asked and started to walk around the bullpen, stopping in front of Gibbs´ desk. "Do I have a black spot on my nose, Gibbs?" Tony glared at his boss, which was a wonderful reinactment of the way Gibbs came up to McGee most days.

Gibbs swallowed hard and Kate could see how the vein in his temple started to twitch. "No, you don´t, Tony...what in this world is going on around here?" He demanded and everyone stared at him. "What on earth are you doing at MY desk? And what exactly is Palmer doing at Kate´s desk? Where is McGee?"

Palmer walked up and looked at Gibbs. "That´s been my desk for the past year, Jethro. Are you feeling okay?" He asked and Tony could tell that the young man had a hard time calling Gibbs by his first name. Nobody ever did that, except Ducky perhaps.

Gibbs stared at them for a moment. Nobody was allowed to use his first name in public, especially not around here. He watched as Kate walked over to him. "You know, Jethro, you do look a bit pale. Maybe you should step off that coffee a bit." She advised him and let another file drop onto his desk. "I need the report on this by noon. Oh, and if you got time, could you get the DNA results from Jen? We need those to get the warrant issued." She added and turned back to the desk that used to be Dinozzo´s.

With soft knees and shaking hands, Gibbs headed for the elevator. When the doors closed, he looked at his reflection on the shiny wall. "I must be hallucinating...I shouldn´t be drinking so much coffee...this has to be a nightmare...this can´t get any worse." He muttered to himself and turned back around when the elevator doors opened to reveal the lab. It was about that second when he was ready to take his last statement back.


	4. Everything changed

April Fool´s Day again

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything.

Summary: It´s the end of March again and Tony starts to plan a new attack on his boss for April Fool´s day. (As I have not watched Twilight, I will assume that this is happening pre-twilightish)

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3- Everything changed

The lab seemed out of a different universe, that much was for sure. Gibbs stood in the still open doors of the elevator while his jaw had dropped clear through the floor. There were flowers just about everywhere in the lab -real ones on the desk, pictures of them on the walls and even plastic ones glued to the edge of the computer screen. In the middle of this was Jenny Shepard in a lab coat, taking notes on something she read from the screen in front of her. She turned around when she heard the elevator open. "Hey, Jethro. Are you here for the DNA?" She asked and watched him stare at her. "I think Dinozzo is waiting for it. Here´s the results on that. Anything else you need?"

Gibbs just shook his head, took the paper from herand stumbled backwards into the elevator, hitting the emergency break after the doors had closed. "This has to be a nightmare. I´m dreaming...There is no freaking way..." He told himself again and put his head against the cool wall. He closed his eyes and prayed that he would wake up soon.

Up in the bullpen, everyone was roaring with laughter in the meantime. "Did you see his face? Oh my word...Hey, McGee, do you get all of that on video?" Kate called up to the balcony where McGee and Ducky were standing.

"Sure am, every second of it. Oh, I just got a call from the police -they´re done so far and we can process the scene now. Stabbed sailor found in the wastewater treatment plant-a nice job for our probie...there might just be some trace evidence left in thatpre-treatment basin, don´t you think, Tony?" McGee said with a wink and disappeared into an office with Ducky at his heels.

The elevator doors opened again and all were back in their new roles. Tony took his phone and acted like he just got a call. "Right, on the way. Kate, gas the truck. Jimmy, get Abbs from autopsy. Gibbs, get the gear." He ordered and rushed out into the parking lot.

Kate ran after him, pulling her jacket on, as did Palmer a moment later. Gibbs just stood there like he was frozen to the spot. It didn´t get much better when he got the jacket from his chair and read the label on the back. "Probie?" He muttered to himself and was now completely lost. He grabbed the backpack from behind his desk and walked into the parking lot. Kate was driving. Tony and Palmer sat in the front seat with her and looked at him.

"You´re acting as if it´s your first day. Get in the back, Gibbs. We don´t have all day." Tony said and watched in the backmirror, how he climbed into the back of the truck.

"Hey, Tony, you did wonderful." Kate whispered to him and he grinned.

"I always wanted to do that, you know?" He replied in a low voice and rubbed his hands. "I mean, he´s been like that forever towards us, so it´s really time for a payback, don´t you think?

At the scene, Kate started with measurements while Palmer take pictures. Tony talked to the police and then sent to look for more evidence. Abby parked the forensics truck beside the MCRT truckand walked over. "Tony? What do we have here?" She asked and heard something that sounded like head against stone. Gibbs had jumped up at the sound of her voice and hit his head on a protruding part of the basin wall.Abby looked completely different. Shehad exchanged her goth-attire for a grey blazer with matching pants and a green turtleneck shirt. Her pigtails had changed into a strict looking braid that hung down from the back of her head. Gibbs noted that she looked totally awesome.

She started going over the body and waved at someone else. "Mr. Morrow, I need the thermometer over here. And bring along a bag, would you?" She called and Gibbs felt his jaw drop yet again when the man he knew as head of the organization office, handed her the tools in question.

"Found anything yet, Gibbs?" Tony´s voice asked from very short distance andhe started searching the brown water that smelled like something he didn´t even want to imagine again, muttering some curses. "Well, in case you find something, let me know."

After nearly an hour, Tony called them together and they walked back to the truck. "Abbs, I need a full autopsy before tonight, make sure you check the tox-levels. Tell Jen to run a search if there are any levels jumping out. Kate, did you get all interviews? Oh, okay, I´ll leave you the truck until you´re done. Take Gibbs along. He might learn something from you there. Jimmy needs a little longer as well on those pictures. See that you´re back before 4 pm, we really need to get going on this." Tony said and got into the forensics truck with Morrow and Abby.

Kate continued with her interviews, always keeping an eye on Gibbs, who was still looking confused and rather pale. Afterwards, they drove back to headquarters. She almost felt sorry for himsitting in the back again, but his clothes were smelling badly, inspite of the all-over-suit.

At headquarters, Tony sent him to the shower immediately and watched him walk off still muttering under his breath. While he gone to get cleaned, the rest was having the time of their lives in the bullpen. "Here´s that special coffee again. I must say, this was an highly unusual day." Ducky said and chuckled before he walked back to the balcony.

Gibbs came out of the elevator a few minutes later, freshly showered, but still confused. "Ah, there you are. Good call on that knife you found. Blood matches our victim. Coffee?" Tony offered him and he gratefully accepted, still confused and completely clueless to what else was going to happen.


	5. Just a dream?

April Fool´s Day again

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything.

Summary: It´s the end of March again and Tony starts to plan a new attack on his boss for April Fool´s day. (As I have not watched Twilight, I will assume that this is happening pre-twilightish)

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5- Just a dream?

10 minutes later, Gibbs was out cold again and they put everything back to the original state. "Damn...I was just getting used to that role." McGee said as he put his phone back onto his desk.

"Well, bambino, you don´t always get what you want." Tony chimed in and grinned. He held up a DVD that McGee had given him a few moments ago. "And here´s our movie for tonight. Chinese take-out and beer -I´m paying. 8 pm at my place." He told everyone and put the disc into his backpack.

When everything was ready again, they continued their work as if nothing had happened. Gibbs came back around about 20 minutes later. He rubbed his eyes and bolted out of his seat the same moment. Kate looked at him, a puzzled look on her face. "Gibbs? Are you okay?" She asked with concern in her voice.

He spun around to look at her, then stared at McGee and Tony, who looked at him as well. "What...where..." He began, but didn´t seem to find the right words.

"Hey, boss, did you have a nightmare or something? You don´t look so good." Dinozzo said and crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh, here´s the paychecks you´ve been asking for. Seems like he was never outside US territory though. Not our man." He added and put a file onto Gibbs´ desk.

"And here´s the results on that partial license plate -only four possible matches, so we can run those down quickly." Kate now said and put another file onto his desk, watching him closely. "Gibbs? You look like you´ve seen a ghost."

Gibbs just sat there and tried to make any sense of his memories. He noticed that everyone was staring at him and got up. "I...I´ll be down in autopsy for a few minutes." He just said and made a beeline for the elevator.

As soon as the doors closed, Kate broke down laughing. "This is SO good, Tony. Sorry I didn´t believe you at first." She managed and wiped a tear out of her face.

Dinozzo was grinning from ear to ear. "Do you reckon we should invite him over for tonight? I mean...you think he´ll kill us?"

She tilted her head a bit. "Hm...don´t know. Let´s wait and ask Ducky how he took it. Can still decide then." She picked up her phone and dialed Abby´s number. "Hey, Abbs. Everything okay down there?"

Abby laughed briefly. "Yep, what a show. He´s in autopsy with Ducky, seemed rather confused, if you ask me. I heard it´s tonight at 8 at Tony´s place, right?" She asked and grinned to herself. "I think we should have him over as well. I think, he´ll have a good laugh about it and slap some heads, but that should be it.

Dr. Donald Mallard had to hide the smile on his face when Gibbs walked into autopsy this afternoon. Although he had not really approved of the little prank in the beginning, but he had to admit, that Dinozzo had done a great job on this one. He had loved the prank about the boat a year ago, but this year had been even better. Of course, without the help from Shepard and the other agents, it wouldn´t have worked so well, but somehow they had really done it.

Gibbs dropped onto a chair in the far corner of the morgue and put his head into his hands. "Duck, I think I should stop drinking coffee." He stated dryly and stared onto the floor.

"Why would that be, Jethro? You seem a bit confused, my friend." Ducky said and pulled up another chair.

"I think I´m losing my mind here. I fell asleep, at least I think I did, welland I had this strange dream. It felt so real. I still have that scent ofthatwaterin my nose...well, I dreamed that I had to search a wastewater plant for trace evidence. And Tony was Senior Agent, and Palmer was an agent too. Abby was head of the morgue and the lab had all kinds of flowers in it. Jen Shepard was our lab technician..." He told the older man and looked at him for a hint of help.

Ducky listened to him, still hiding the smile. "That sure seems unusual. Maybe you should try to get your head off from work a bit. You are in here far too much, Jethro. How about you accompany me to a little get-together tonight. We planned on watching a homevideo and have some Chinese food." Ducky offered, having gotten the invitation from Dinozzo just a few minutes ago.

"Duck, I´m not in the mood for stuff like that." Gibbs replied and tried to forget that awful dream, but miserably failed.

"Jethro, you will accompany me tonight. This is not a question anymore and you know that I am very well capable of issuing orders to you. I don´t like doing so, but in this case I´m afraid I have to. I shall pick you up at 7:30 pm tonight. If you would excuse me now, there is another autopsy waiting for me." Ducky excused himself and turned towards the table with a black bag on top. He grinned widely for a second and started to work.


	6. McGee Productions presents

April Fool´s Day again

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything.

Summary: It´s the end of March again and Tony starts to plan a new attack on his boss for April Fool´s day. (As I have not watched Twilight, I will assume that this is happening pre-twilightish)

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6- McGee Production presents…

Gibbs was irritated for the rest of the afternoon and wondered why everyone kept looking at him. "Dinozzo, do I have something on my nose?" He barked at Tony and wondered why Kate took a dive behind her desk the same second. McGee made a beeline for the elevator and disappeared out of sight only a few seconds later.

"No, boss. I was just thinking and looking at nothing specific." Dinozzo replied and continued to type his report. It was nearly 6 pm, time to go home. Gibbs wasn´t too thrilled to spend the evening with Ducky. Usually, that meant a bingo tournament with Duck´s mother or one of those old black-and-white movies that didn´t have speech in them.

After getting off from work, Kate followed Tony to his apartment to help him prepare everything. "Did you get coffee for Gibbs? If he´s pissed off, he´ll need a whole load of it." She said as they started to move the TV set up against the wall. They needed a lot of space for everyone to fit in. "I still think we should have done this show at Ducky´s house -there´s enough room."

"There´s his mother. You know how she would start asking you if you were dating her son..." Tony said and she cringed inwardly. He grinned as he threw four large cushions onto the floor. "This should do. I´ll go ahead and order our food. They should be here in about half an hour. Can you put the beer into the freezer for just a few minutes? I can´t fit all of it into the fridge." He picked up the phone and started to rattle off a long list of food to the guy at the restaurant.

The doorbell rang and Kate opened. Outside were Abby and McGee, both grinning widely. "I got us some ice cream." Abby said and went ahead to put it into the freezer after giving Kate a brief hug. McGee walked to the TV and checked all cables to make sure they wouldn´t have problems there. He knew that Tony was sometimes a bit brief about technical issues.

Next to arrive were their directors. Both Tom Morrow and Jenny Shepard seemed to be in a good mood as well. Kate had been a bit hesitant about having her superiors in on this, but when Shepard pulled out a large bag of homemade cookies, the ice seemed broken. Everyone settled down after Jimmy Palmer had made it as well. They had asked Ducky to come in last, just to make sure they had enough witnesses to keep Gibbs there. He would try to get away as soon as he saw them.

At 8:05 pm, the doorbell rang again and Tony could already hear his boss complaining. "You said nothing about Dinozzo´s place, Duck." He heard before he opened the door and let them in.

"Good evening, Anthony. Are we still on time?" Ducky asked and winked at the younger agent.

"Sure are, come on in. We were just waiting for the two of you." He closed the door and locked it, just in case. "Food is in the kitchen, beer is in the fridge, just help yourself."

Gibbs put his coat on hanger before following Mallard through the hallway into the livingroom. He wondered briefly why Mallard seemed to know his way around here rather well. He had never mentioned being to Dinozzo´s place before. His jaw dropped slightly when he entered the livingroom, finding half of NCIS sitting there. When he tried to turn around and leave, someone grabbed his sleeve. "Hello to you too, Jethro. Why don´t you grab some food and sit down."

He had to look twice when he noticed Director Morrow smiling at him. Something was odd today, very odd. "Dinozzo..." He said in a low voice, but just received a grin as an answer.

"Everyone settled? I did some editing on the whole thing this afternoon, just to make it look at bit better. And in case someone should wonder, no it´s not computer processed, this is real material." McGee said as he turned on the TV and sat down next to Abby.

A title screen came on. Kate stiffled a laugh when she read it. "Probationary Confusion. Hell, that´s great, Tim." She told McGee who seemed to blush a bit, but it was too dark to be sure. Gibbs sat on a cushion between her and Tom Morrow. She noticed that he was looking at her and smiled. "Just enjoy the movie." She told him, but he seemed rather hesitant.

When the first picture came on, everyone grinned, well everyone except for Gibbs, who was obviously confused. There was a clock on the upper lefthand corner, showing 9:00 am. Ducky walked into the picture and handed out coffee to everyone in the room. The sound on the tape was crystal clear and he suspected that there had been audio devices hidden somewhere. When he was about to turn around and ask something, he felt a hand on his arm.

He met Kate´s eyes and somehow it calmed him down again. When he saw himself falling asleep on the desk, he was a bit puzzled. There was music now, like in one of those old films Ducky loved to watch. Everything seemed to be fast forwarded for a moment until the clock read 9:28 am. He noticed that the office had changed and suddenly understand. "Dinozzo..." He growled, but everyone shushed him to be quiet.

For about 90 minutes, he was forced to relive his nightmare again, only that he now knew it hadn´t been a nightmare after all. When the credits were rolling over the screen, he still stared at the TV while everyone else started to applaud. "Wow, great job, Tim. That looks so professional." Tony said and Gibbs noticed the use of McGee´s first name.

Confused, he looked at Ducky, who was wiping tears from his face. "This was indeed quite amusing. Thank you for letting me be part of it." He told Tony and grinned.

Jenny Shepard seemed equally amused and turned to Gibbs. "You have a wonderful team there, Jethro. I doubt that anyone would have thought about doing something like this to me ever. They must really like you a lot." She said and all agents suddenly found something very interesting somewhere else to look at.

Gibbs thought for a moment, then got up. "See you tomorrow." He told all of them and simply walked out of the door. He could literally hear the questioning looks behind him, but didn´t turn around. When he reached the street, he realized that he didn´t have his car with him, but somehow that didn´t matter. Tony´s place was about five blocks from where he lived and it was a nice evening. He started walking down the road, smiling. Tomorrow he would make sure that McGee pulled him a copy of that DVD. He wasn´t sure why, but he started to like April 1st somehow.

END


End file.
